The Must-Buy Self-Help Books to Read In Your 20s

If you are confused about what to study in college, what career path to go after, or simply what to do with your life…YOU NEED THIS BOOK!

This is at the top of my list for a reason. What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles is an incredibly comprehensive guide to designing your career and your life around your passions and skills. 

It’s filled with personality tests to determine your strengths and ideal working conditions. Additionally, it offers plentiful advice on modern job hunt strategies, networking, and interviewing skills. 

Don’t have much job experience? This book will show you how to take the beginning skills you do have and turn them into transferable skills that can help you work towards getting into the field you really want. 

What I found most beneficial from this book was the clarity it provided me on what careers are best suited for my personality type. 

It guided me through assessing my job deal-breakers and helped me identify the components I should be looking for in a job, based on my preferences and what environment I’d thrive in. 

{RELATED POST: Why You Shouldn’t Settle When Choosing Your Career}

If you find yourself always caring “too much” about the things that don’t matter, you’ll want to give this a read.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson doesn’t sugarcoat, is authentic through and through, and shifts your focus towards what matters and away from what doesn’t. 

This book encourages you to find something personally meaningful in your life that you can dedicate productive time and energy to. The intention is not to stop giving a fuck about anything. It’s to give a fuck about what aligns with your personal values. 

Basically, ditch what’s unimportant and do not waste your time and energy on it. 

When you find what gives your life meaning, it’ll become more manageable to overcome the problems associated with that thing, because it’s meaningful to you. 

{RELATED POST: How to Define Success On Your Own Terms + Achieve What’s Best For You}

We all deal with stress. If you’re looking for a well-researched, biological-focused solution for a stress-free life, look no further than this book.

Stress Proof by Mithu Storoni, MD, Ph.D. reveals several ways of strengthening our natural defenses so that our minds and bodies grow resilient to the negative impacts of stress.

Keep in mind that this book focuses more on physical things you can do to improve stress, rather than psychological things. 

While it does offer some information relating to what you can do emotionally and cognitively to improve stress, I feel that there could have been more detail and focus on that.

Nonetheless, Stress Proof offers great advice on how we can change our daily habits to promote a more stress-free life.

This book offers unique ways to go about doing so, involving music (binaural beats–a type of sound wave therapy), eye movements, and body temperature. 

I want to preface this one by saying that while the title may sound like a “get rich quick” book, this is not. (I don’t like to waste my time reading those books!)

This was the first self-help book I ever read. And it made me fall in love with books for motivation and success!

Smart Women Finish Rich by David Bach is a REALISTIC guide to the steps you must take to be smart with your money. As a young person, this book is an absolute MUST to introduce you to concepts like spending wisely, building credit, savings accounts, and aligning money with your values. 

While this book is applicable to all, it does address the financial disadvantages that women face. Factors such as:

• Women are more likely to earn less than men
• More likely to take time off work for childcare purposes
• Likely to outlive their husbands 
• Have less saved up for retirement than their husbands (DESPITE living longer on average)
• Take longer to find new work

If your bills are scattered all over the house or shoved into a shoebox, this book is also beneficial for you because it helps you set up more organized systems for keeping your finances in check.

{RELATED POST: How to Track Monthly Expenses Using a Personal Expense Tracker Excel Template}

This is truly one of the ULTIMATE self-help books to read in your 20s.

Why?

Because this book is all about honing your personal effectiveness and building meaningful relationships with others. 

While a couple of the books on my list target outward success (career and finances, for example), this is all about focusing on inner (and interpersonal) success. 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey opens with an explanation of how even those who have gained a great level of outward success typically have a strong need to develop interpersonal relationships and personal fulfillment. 

So while you may be reaching toward your metrics of outward success–good education, a nice job offer, great money management skills–this is a powerful lesson in that you must not neglect your PERSONAL development, too!

{RELATED POST: Self Discipline vs. Motivation: Why Motivation Won’t Get You Results}

As I update this post for 2022, Atomic Habits by James Clear is a non-negotiable to add to this list. This book is the most practical and easy-to-follow manual for implementing habit change that ACTUALLY works.

You really learn how your habits are the main thing connected to your goals. If you don’t have proper habits (AKA “systems”) in place toward reaching a goal, it just won’t happen. You have to work consistently, HOWEVER, you don’t have to be extreme.

I think what intimidates many people is believing that they have to go through drastic, serious changes to achieve something they care about. James Clear explains that this is not the case.

It’s going to be far more sustainable for you to just start with small changes. The idea of getting “1% better” each day is going to be more meaningful in the long run than you’d ever know! And this book will show you exactly how to get where you’re trying to go.

If there’s one challenge in your 20s that’s almost universally difficult for everyone, it’s making friendships! That is, especially meaningful friendships.

No longer are the days where meeting friends on the playground happened so effortlessly. As an adult, we have to go out of our way to discover and nurture long-term friendships. Friendships Don’t Just Happen by Shasta Nelson explains exactly how to create your true circle of girlfriends.

In fact, the book shows how every adult should find friends in each of these 5 circles:

• Contact friends – you may have something in common in a shared environment with contact friends. These are the people we gravitate to when we see them in church, in our yoga class, or in our book club. These are the least close type of friend.
• Common friends – a more intentional effort is made to spend time with common friends. You still interact based on a share commonality, like belonging to the same club, but you initiate spending time together and having long conversations with these friends.
• Confirmed friends – you share a history of a bond with confirmed friends, but your relationship is not as regular as it once was. While not engaged in your everyday life, when you do spend time with these friends you are able to pick up where you left off just like old times!
• Community friends – this marks the transition from “friends we see because we share a common activity” into “friends we seek out beyond our shared activity.” It’s when you feel comfortable asking a work friend to hang out on the weekend, where you reveal more about yourselves beyond the initial bonding subject.
• Committed friends – you consistently and intimately share your life with these people. These friendships are the deepest, most meaningful, and very vulnerable. No matter what life changes happen, these people will still be in your life through any crisis.

Ever feel like there’s a ton of things to do and not enough time to do it all? You and me both, friend! This is why having a good time management strategy is everything for managing the chaos life throws at us.

If you haven’t heard of the Pomodoro Technique, you’re missing out! Put simply, the Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo is a time management technique in which you work in short bursts (typically, 25 mins) followed by short breaks (typically, 5 mins). 

The focus of the Pomodoro Technique is to think of time as a valuable ally to accomplish what we want to do the way we want to do it. By breaking up your work in the way that this technique promotes, you reduce burnout while still being highly productive.

With each 5 minute break, you get the chance to mindfully disconnect from your work. And when you return, the mental clarity you feel is pretty astounding!

When I first gave the Pomodoro Technique a try myself, I was surprised by how focused and on-task I felt. I didn’t have that awful feeling of overwhelm that I normally get when I try to power through a boatload of work with no real break.

This is a fantastic, straightforward time management technique that works for many, so I definitely recommend grabbing this book so you can understand the details behind it! I have a more detailed review of The Pomodoro Technique book here, if you want more info before buying.